The Way Everything Was
by PhantasmFlash
Summary: Ragna is the leader of a special task force for the government. What will happen when he gets a call about a job that could be more than him and his team could handle? Is he prepared to face the mission that may be his undoing? Please R&R. First story I have done in awhile.
1. The Beginning of the End

**The way everything was...**

**Chapter 1-The Beginning of the End**

* * *

Ragna, a young man in his early twenties, was sitting on a bench in the park. His normally spiky, white hair was matted down and his once bright, red jacket was now closer to a maroon color than anything else. He had seen better days. He was homeless, he had betrayed his friends, and all he wanted...was a second chance to make things right again.

"Everyone...forgive me..." He lamented to himself as he closed his eyes and thought of the events that had occurred to lead him down the path he is now on. As he sat there with his eyes closed, he listened to the wind around him. He could swear he heard the laughter of his friends again...but he knew that was impossible...he lost himself in his thoughts as the bustle of life went on around him.

"Maybe if I just close my eyes and think back to then...I can be with everyone once more..." He whispered to himself. As he said this, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He was too lost in his own thoughts to notice the old woman set a bag of chips next to him, smile weakly, and walk away.

_Ragna was sitting in his room at his apartment which he shared with his friends Nu, Noel, and Rachel. They all worked for the same company and were on the same team as well. They weren't just room mates, they were partners...and best friends. _

_Nu was an energetic girl with a penchant for making people smile no matter what with her goofy demeanor and bubbly attitude. She was a specialist when it came to her role on the team though. She knew every point on the human body that could shut it down completely. Noel was a small, blonde girl who was kind of shy around people, but was one of the most reliable girls you would ever meet. Her specialty was sneaking and espionage. Nobody even came close to her when something needed to be done unnoticed. Rachel was a girl who looked as if she was just a child, but her wisdom and character showed otherwise. She may have been small, but she was a fierce fighter. Nobody would guess that she was a master of 6 different martial arts. Last, there was Ragna...codename Bloodedge...he was the only one who could rival Rachel in hand to hand combat and his specialty was information gathering, and computer spiking._

_The company they worked for was the Novus Orbis Librarium, the government for our world, and we were a small, but efficient, task force charged with protecting the peace of certain "secrets" that would be devastating to us if they fell into the wrong hands. We were the best of the best. Nothing was too hard for us to accomplish when we worked together as a team. At least, that was what he thought. Until they got the call that would change his life forever._

"_Sir? Could you repeat that?" Ragna said as he spoke into his cell phone. He was speaking with his director. He and his team had just been assigned a new mission. After hearing the details, though, he __did not like the sound of it one bit._

"_You and the girls are to go immediately to the frozen city. It is dangerous there and they do not like outsiders. It is very likely that you will be in imminent danger the moment you step from the plane. You are to find the base of the terrorist group led by a man known only as Hazama. You will need to be very careful. He is dangerous and has no qualms with killing innocents to get what he wants. Once you locate the base, you will need to recover the information on their servers that was stolen from a convey that was delivering a certain "project" to us." The director said in his usual monotone voice._

"_Sir, what was this project? What are we going into hostile territory for if it will be that dangerous? Shouldn't you send someone else other than a four person team?" Ragna said uneasily. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since this morning and now he knew why._

"_Let's just say that you will know when you get there." The director said with a click as he hung up the phone. Ragna threw his cell on his bed and punched the wall leaving a hole where his fist was._

"_Damn...there is no way I could put everyone in danger like that...especially Nu..." He said to himself. He had yet to tell her how he really felt about the white haired angel. He had been in love with her since they had been assigned to the same team. He heard footsteps bounding down the hall to his room. Within seconds, the door flew open to reveal a half dressed Nu and Noel. They had obviously just woken up. Nu was taking a fighting stance while Noel was rubbing sleep from her eyes. Ragna chuckled to himself at the sight of the two girls in their half asleep forms._

"_Ragna, we heard a boom. Are you alright?" Noel asked yawning. Nu was still in her fighting pose, but something was a bit off. They both turned to look at Nu and noticed that she was snoring softly and her eyes were closed. The girl had fallen asleep standing up._

"_Everything is fine. Go wake up Rachel. Take Nu with you and get your things ready. We have a job. A dangerous one." Ragna said sternly without even blinking. Noel looked confused and tilted her head._

"_Huh? Ragna, what is it-" Noel was cut off by Ragna yelling_

"_NOW!" He screamed._

"_EEP!" Noel squeaked as she grabbed Nu and ran down the hall to do what was asked of her. Ragna sat down on his bed and buried his head in his lap._

"_Hazama...just how dangerous are you..." Ragna said to himself. He looked at his phone at the clock to see it was not even 9 AM yet. He was already feeling exhausted from the morning so far and just __wanted to crawl back into bed and go to sleep. He knew that he had a job to do though and nobody else was going to do it for him. He had to lead his team through this and get them back. He just told himself this would be another routine info gathering mission just with a bit more danger than usual. Usually, the people they had to get info from weren't leaders of terrorist groups and hardly were they well trained enough to be too much trouble. He just knew that this time would be different and they would be lucky to get out unscathed._

"_I guess I better get everything ready." He said to himself as he began packing what he knew he would need. He heard the girls laughing with eachother down the hall and the sounds of them packing as well. At least, they seemed to not be suspicious of the way he was acting earlier...yet anyway. After he was finished packing his things, he decided to take a small nap before they had to leave. As he shut his eyes, he thought of the one thing that made him happy no matter what was going on in his life. He thought of the bright, smiling face of his beloved Nu. He would protect her at all costs and when they got back, he would finally tell her how he felt._

"_Nu...I'll be here" He said as he drifted off into slumber. The man who was destined to lead this team would forever change with future events. He just had yet to realize it._

* * *

_**END**_

_**Hey guys. I have been gone quite awhile and am now getting back. Many things have happened and I am sorry I have not been here to write my stories for you. I am sure I am quite rusty so let me know if you enjoy this so far. I really hope you guys have a great weekend.**_

_**-Echoesofmercy**_


	2. Arrival

**The Way Everything Was**

**Arrival**

* * *

"Ragna? Ragna? Have you been listening?" Noel asked while they were in the back of a truck that was taking them the rest of the way to their destination. Everything was snow as far as the eye could see and the girls had all noticed that Ragna seemed a bit more distant than he usually was. He hadn't even touched the food Rachel had made and he usually was all over it as soon as it was in front of him.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, right. Nu stop bugging Noel and sit still." Ragna said without even looking in their direction. The three girls exchanged worried glances. That had not been the topic that was going on at all. They had all been discussing the details of what would be going on. They would be here for awhile, after all, and they needed to figure out everything as quickly as possible.

"Ragna, Nu is worried about you. Nu wants to know what is wrong so she can help. We all want to help." Nu said while sniffling softly. She didn't like seeing Ragna acting like this. This was not normal and she felt that if things continued like this, then something may happen that will break them apart for good. Rachel and Noel understood what Nu was thinking and nodded at eachother.

"Ragna, tell us what is wrong right now. We know that we are coming here for a mission and we know that we need to get intel as quickly as possible, but we don't know what we need to get intel for yet since you have yet to explain anything to us other than where we are going." Rachel spoke softly. Noel came next while sliding next to Ragna and putting a hand on his shoulder. Ragna just sighed and decided he could at least tell them a little about what was going on right now.

"All right, you guys win. The director called me before we left with the details. We are supposed to recover info on some 'project' that was stolen from the Library recently. We are lucky so far since we haven't run into any trouble since we are not welcome guests in this city by any means. We will be in constant danger here. We can't trust anybody other than ourselves. Huh? Nu? What's wrong?" Ragna asked as he saw Nu look down at her feet like she was saddened by something.

"Nu is fine, Ragna, continue your briefing." Nu said while looking up quickly. Ragna was about to start speaking again when he noticed the truck slowing down. The girls looked at eachother and wondered why they were slowing as well. They were told they would not arrive for at least another hour. Ragna knocked sharply on the window seperating the driver's seat from the back where they were sitting.

"Hey, Driver, why are we slowing down? We need to get to the city ASAP." He yelled. He was answered with a soft laughter. Noel got a scary look in her eyes and placed her hand on her firearm while Nu and Rachel braced themselves. This was not normal at all.

"You are right about one thing, safety is something you can't LOOK FORWARD TOO!" The driver yelled as Ragna and the girls heard three loud bangs. Three bullet holes tore through the separator and into the back of the truck where they were all sitting. Ragna moved as quick as he could while inside the truck. The driver was trying to kill them before they could even get to the city. Ragna was about to pull his pistol from his side when he heard another bang come from behind him and the truck swerved and screeched to a halt.

"What the? What happened?" Ragna asked as he looked back and saw Noel was the one who had shot the fourth shot. He looked back to the window and saw that the driver had been her target and she had been dead on. He was no longer a threat to them.

"I got him. Geez you are slow, Ragna. Are you losing your touch? Normally, nobody could have gotten the jump on you like that. You would have sensed that coming way before any of this even happened." She said as that scary look in her eyes started to fade and she got her normal innocent look about her again. She holstered her gun and looked back at Rachel and Nu to check on them.

"Rachel, Nu, are you guys alright? That was a close one...huh?" She said as both she and Ragna noticed Rachel on the floor of the truck, holding her forearm. She was hit with two of the bullets while the third went out the back of the truck.

"RACHEL!" The three shouted in unison as they picked her up and Nu tore her sleeve to make a make-shift splint. Rachel winced a little but smiled and sat up.

"I'll be fine, it isn't that...OW!" She yelped as Nu tightened the knot around the wounds. They needed to get into town quick to get supplies to fix her up before anything got infected, or worse.

"Ragna, you drive the rest of the way while we sit here and make sure Rachel is alright." Noel said while laying Rachel's head down on her lap. It may have only hit her arm, but they all knew from experience that you should never take a gunshot lightly. They have seen many of their friends make that mistake and they were not around anymore to have learned from it.

"Damn...This is why I didn't want to involve anyone in this." Ragna said as he threw the body out of the truck and got in the drivers seat and floored the gas. He needed to get to town as quickly as possible. He was not about to lose one of his team. He would die before he let that happen.

"Director, you better have had a good reason for sending just the four of us here. We were almost killed by the damn chauffeur. Heh, wouldn't that make for a funny obituary? Ragna and team killed by driver. That's a laugh...Rachel I'll get us there soon. Don't you worry. We will get you fixed up." He said to himself as he looked in the mirror to see Rachel had fallen asleep on Noel's lap while Nu and Noel were both watching her intently for any signs of change.

"Noel, Nu is glad you were here. Thank you for saving us." Nu said as she looked down at Rachel's sleeping visage and smiled. The girl was rather cute when she was sleeping. There was a quiet serentiy about her that she didn't like to show when she was awake.

"Of course, Nu. You guys are my friends and my partners. You would do the same for me." Noel said as she put a hand on the girl's head. Nu was a bit worried about Noel, however. She had noticed that whenever they got into fights like this, she became a different person. She became...violent...one could even say she became sadistic to an extent. Nu was a good judge of character and even with how long they had known eachother and fought on the same side, she never truly could figure the blonde out.

"Ragna, How much longer? Nu is getting hungry?" Nu asked. Ragna was too busy in his thoughts to hear her, however. He was thinking about what they would do if Rachel couldn't go with them to gather intel. They couldn't leave her alone and they couldn't drag her around in this damn cold weather with a wound like that.

"Shit, why does this impasse have to hit us now?" He said to himself as he noticed another car pull out from behind a patch of trees behind them.

"They just don't give up, do they?" He said. He knocked on the window and threw up a hand sign. Noel nodded her head and reached into a bag beside them that carried the rest of their weapons and various other tools and pulled out a pair of binoculars. She looked through at the car that was now behind them to see two men in the car. One was on the phone while driving and looked like he was in an intense conversation while the other was loading a rifle.

"Code three, Ragna. Hard left." Noel said as she smirked. Nu noticed her facial expression became scary again as she withdrew her pistol and she felt the truck turn to its side. Noel stuck her upper body out the window after placing Rachel with Nu and aimed at the car's front tires and fired blowing out both of them in five shots. The car slammed its breaks and they saw the men get out and begin yelling at eachother.

"Great job, Noel. You can come back in the car now." Nu said as she heard two more shots and saw both the men drop where they stood. Noel had shot them both when they weren't even a threat to them anymore. Noel came back into the car grinning wildly and started reloading her clip.

"They won't be bother us anymore now will they?" She said while laughing softly. Her eyes had the look of bloodlust in them but within a couple of minutes, they faded back to their normal light.

Nu was now frightened. She would watch her from now on...if only to protect her friends.

"Noel, you are our friend...right?"

* * *

_**END**_

_**Author's Notes-Chapter 2 is now up guys. Been going through a new hire process so I havent had a chance to write this until now. Please R&R and the next chapter will be up as soon as I can get it written down. Hope you enjoy it.**_

_**-Echoesofmercy**_


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